Slitherine

Hi McGuba,

Now I finally managed true Total Victory at turn 89 (General diff and random dice). Everything was mine from Reykjavik to Basrah.

Even Gibraltar airfield was captured and fortification was about to fall.

I have two times before been few turns short of capturing all ME oilfields. Key was early advance and capture of El Alamein line. It was close, the last fortification was captured on the same turn as the Lightfoot first hit.

I always try to preserve units and do not get to buy new units.

Very satisfying and challenging play.


Secondly, managed a reasonably stable draw from Normandy save. Lines were at Paris in the West and at Vistula river in the East (which is now more difficult as the river is not anymore a major one). Requirement, to have any change of surviving, is a timely recapture of Romanian oilfields.

In Normandy save the FW190 A8 work. IMO the zero to one star FW190 A5 or A8 cannot anyway compete with 2 star Mustangs. Here the A8 firepower is very useful against bombers and green replacements are cheap. You really do not have prestige excess in '44 or '45. Two star A5 can, with careful play, survive until D9 are fielded. What I would suggest is to have A5 available in parallel with A8 until D9 arrives. This way players can choose how to use FW190's.

AR234 is a nice touch. Is it connected to only one or several possible bomber units?


Well, what to play next.. When are we blessed with a new version?

Hassanka wrote:Slitherine shoud definitely employ McGuba as map designer for PZC2
That would mean he have all time he need to work on in
I would definitely pay standard price for this map as stand alone DLC.
Hope someone from Slith team is visiting this forum

Thanks.

Intenso82 wrote: When the next version for multiplayer BE is ready, I will always be glad to test

I am quite busy these days, but maybe in a few weeks we can start it again. But next time I would like to play it from both sides to see the whole picture. Problem is, in that case it would require 2-3 hours of gameplay each day, even if we do only one turn. And I still remember from our first testplay how impatient I could be after making a turn and waiting for you to do the same. So it would require quite a lot of free time and may affect real life stuff.

I made a lot of changes, most of what we agreed on before, plus a few more, so maybe now the Axis side has become too strong. Which might be somewhat unhistorical, but I would like to make it in a way so that the Axis side has some chance for winning, too, otherwise players would not find much fun in playing it.

By the way, in my few free time I started playing the latest available beta version of your RaW mod and really enjoy it as it does not take that much time to make a turn every now and then. Only made it to turn 5 so far, but it looks like more challenging than the earlier version that I tried. It would be nice to see this campaign finished as well.

P210 wrote:Hi McGuba,

Now I finally managed true Total Victory at turn 89 (General diff and random dice). Everything was mine from Reykjavik to Basrah.

Even Gibraltar airfield was captured and fortification was about to fall.

Thanks for your feedback, and congrats for your success. Although many players claimed that it is impossible to achieve a total victory, you and others proved that it is very much possible for a determined player, even though it is undoubtedly very difficult.

Secondly, managed a reasonably stable draw from Normandy save. Lines were at Paris in the West and at Vistula river in the East (which is now more difficult as the river is not anymore a major one).

Yes, I did it on purpose, as the AI is very incompetent in crossing rivers, expecially major ones. The main problem is it does not use bridging units as it should.

What I would suggest is to have A5 available in parallel with A8 until D9 arrives. This way players can choose how to use FW190's.

Good suggestion, will do.

AR234 is a nice touch. Is it connected to only one or several possible bomber units?

Yes, only KG 76 gets it as an automatic upgrade (if it still exists - if not, it is reformed at the same time). Historically it was the only unit which recieved it in considerable number.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kampfgeschwader_76

Well, what to play next.. When are we blessed with a new version?

Dunno, but not in the near future, I am afraid.

McGuba wrote:I am quite busy these days, but maybe in a few weeks we can start it again.

Of course write to me in PM when you're ready.

McGuba wrote:But next time I would like to play it from both sides to see the whole picture. Problem is, in that case it would require 2-3 hours of gameplay each day, even if we do only one turn.

Pair game, good.
I think we can play at the same pace as last time, 1-2 turn per day for one side, but not every day.
But it will just be twice as long.
Although this is just a test. It's unlikely that we will play all 99 turns for both sides.
Although I would like to play until the end.

McGuba wrote: And I still remember from our first testplay how impatient I could be after making a turn and waiting for you to do the same.

This is the best indicator that something excellent is in this mod
And in the ideas of global strategy games/mods.

McGuba wrote:I started playing the latest available beta version of your RaW mod and really enjoy it as it does not take that much time to make a turn every now and then. Only made it to turn 5 so far, but it looks like more challenging than the earlier version that I tried.

Well, in the beginning everything is good with AI.
At the beginning, the player have predictable losses.
But I think that at the end of the scenario, an experienced player easily defeats the enemy.
Through total destruction
Therefore, I'm interested in other opinions.

McGuba wrote:It would be nice to see this campaign finished as well.

Now it is on a pause, free time has decreased.
Initially, it was planned to expand the screnario to 70-80 turns. Until the spring of 1942.
But how to continue until there is no solution.
I need to figure out how to solve the problem of the destruction of Germans under Moscow.
One solution is to look at the code and enter new patterns for the AI, expand the AI ​​zones, and so on. (I would prefer this solution )

Or finish scenario on the 50th turn at the beginning of the 1942.
And continue from the summer of the 42nd. But then a big time piece will fall out.

Or revive the German defense through scripts. But this is quite difficult.
After all, we do not know where the player will be on the 50th turn.
And here all the same it will take a lot of zones to foresee this.
Yes, and it will look rather strange when suddenly appearing German positions out of nowhere

Or come up with some other solution.

It was also planned to add naval battles. What also requires studying a large number of historical sources. And the addition of a number of historical events.
And even more time to compare these sources with each other.
Quite interestingly, what turns out to be on this topic (naval operations in the Black, Baltic, Northern seas) is not so much full information.
And it is either classified or incomplete (Soviet sources) or not always reliable (Western sources) for example the book of Jürg Meister "Der Seekrieg in Den Osteuropâischen Gewässern 1941-45".

It seems that it is too much for one update. Maybe I'll decide to divide it into several parts.

It was interesting to try this global mod.
USSR capitulated at turn 59. (Random dice, Field Marshal)
Caucas oilfields is mine. Successfully defended Sicily and occupied Cairo.

I'm not sure that I will finish this map, because it takes too much time.
Anyway thank you for mod!

Keen wrote:It was interesting to try this global mod.
USSR capitulated at turn 59. (Random dice, Field Marshal)
Caucas oilfields is mine. Successfully defended Sicily and occupied Cairo.

I'm not sure that I will finish this map, because it takes too much time.
Anyway thank you for mod!

Well, at least someone managed !) Congratulations comrade ! I now play about the Hungarian Army mod everything is great , very well done, the opportunity of defence against the Soviet hordes but this Empire to understand how will lose

This morning I launched the scenario editor and was about to start making THIS EXACT MOD. (I've done similar scenario back in the days of Panzer General in 1995).
Then I thought: "Maybe somebody has already done it? It would save me a lot of work."

Googled this and saw that my prayers were answered. Thank you Battlefield: Europe!

Really interesting documentary about the oil crisis of the Axis/Germany - even from 1940!
McGuba: maybe all of the capital ships should be have the same penalties, as now the Battleships?
Maybe even harder penalties could be made for all units, which are not motorized after 1941, if the player do not capture at least one additional oil source? That means, the war would be only winnable, if the Axis concentrate it's efforts to capture the oil wells at Grozny in early 1942.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVo5I0xNRhg

Well, in my last game, I could capture the oil wells at Grozny at turn 27, that is middle July, 1942... On the other hand, realistic seen, it would bring not much, because it was surrounded by Soviet troops (Grozny could be taken also much later), so it was only linked from SW through to Caucasus mountains... On the other hand, I was in hurry (to earn turn 50 DV), so, I run with my main force SE, to reach the oil fields in the Middle East.

Hi all! I am starting an AAR based on the 1941 save of this awesome mod. Hope you like it. I will take at least 1 week of rest as it takes time to write it.

Here's the link:

http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtop ... 45&t=84399

Bye!

I made a new challenge for v1.9!
It is named Axis oil crisis. With the recent viewed studies, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVo5I0xNRhg, as I understood, the key factor - besides the cracking of the Enigma - was the fuel situation for the Axis powers/forces. That meant, the fuel reserves were drastically reduced by the end of 1941. That meant, offensive actions had to be reduced in scale, the capital ships couldn't operate effective and the fuel scarceness became a daily problem. Even, when the Axis would have taken Grozny, it wouldn't have been enough, because it would have been destroyed (as was happened to the captured Maikop oil fields) - what meant, that min. one year had to be needed to repair them. On the other hand, the Baku's fields produced far more crude oil, therefore, I would calculate, that even all these wells properly destroyed, some well could be restored sooner (10% would have been enough at Baku).
So, what means all that in the mod?
- Fuel shortage of the capital ships starts already at turn 14/18 (fuel 25/50)
- Every Axis ground units looses 4 fuel rations/turn from turn 16 until another 2 oil wells are captured. This simulates also the hard logistical problems, to transport the fuel from Germany to the far ends of the world: Russia and offshore locations. So, this way, the situation will be realized, what was happened at Case Blue, that panzer divisions were stuck because of the lack of fuel.
- That means also, that the player should focus to take the Grozny and Baku oil fields as soon as possible!
It will be hard...not just because of the defenses, but because of the wast distances... Still, it is manageable.
This time I made it even harder to simulate more the historical start: no pre-scenarios playing, no extra prestige and experience collecting because of that. No core force change from one panzer to fighter. Plus the Finnish airforce operated only on Finnish (+ captured Finnish) soil and in the close region of Leningrad. I could take Baku at turn 35, while also initiating the "casual" operations: invading Britain, advancing to the east in the desert and take Moscow - although the last was far more hard, as less forces could be used for it. I could made my "turn 50 DV achivement" too, although just barely (exactly at turn 50). On the other hand, I did not made a siege of Leningrad, only starting around turn 30, and Sevastopol and Tobruk was captured only at turn 48. Leningrad at turn 50. It gave me a really fresh gameplay!
A positive side effect was, that because of the early capture of Rostov and the Grozny oil fields, I could shift part of my forces to mop up the yet inactive Soviet forces southeast of Stalingrad. That meant, that with very hard and costly battles, but I could hold Stalingrad in the winter of 1942/43. The effect was, that in the spring of 1943, I could resume my southern offensive from Stalingrad.

- I made some thoughts, that another penalty can be also implemented: because of the fuel shortage, Axis pilot training were also drastically reduced, producing green ears, cannon fodder replacements. That could be simulated, that from mid 1943, all axis aircraft looses 35 experience, from start 1944 another 50 xp and from start of 1945 another 65 xp. What do you think? Should I also implement this? Or this would be to sadistic?

So, regarding of your need for a new version, you can play now the Axis oil crisis "DLC"! Anybody interested? Than I can upload it.

Hi Uhu!

Although the idea seems great and properly reflecting the oil & supply situation of Germany, I am afraid that it may prove too much for the average player. I am reading "The Wages of Destruction" by Adam Tooze and it is a great companion to understand what you reflect on your DLC. By failing to knock out the Soviet Union in 1941, Germany was already doom.

Of course, your DLC is not mandatory, but I beleive this mod is difficult as it is. I just made my first Decivsive Victory (on turn 98! and because I got really lucky).

@Mcguba, based on my past playthroughs in 1.9 I agree with most people that the Royal Navy needs to behave differently. Several ships come from the west but stay near the french Brest peninsula. Never moving.
The main force sails from Scapa Flow but I found that it is easy to destroy them with the Kriegsmarine (providing you saved the U-Boats that you accumulate in 1942)

goodbye!

I like your idea Uhu. I am doing something similar in my mod, but reversed.

The Soviet income(per-diem prestige) is reduced for every certain number of wells destroyed. In the game time scales, this would be the only reasonable outcome for either player. As you stated, it would a year or more to get meaningful production out of captured production areas. No real gain for the attacker, but the defender loses immediately. The prestige hit more realistically simulates the economic and industrial damage than a per-unit cost, and is much easier to implement.


We now return to McGuba's awesome mod thread still in progress...

Sure, sure, that "mod of the mod" is for hardcore fans, who played already many times though with DV. (Do not try at home, kids! )

empedocles wrote:Hi Uhu!

Although the idea seems great and properly reflecting the oil & supply situation of Germany, I am afraid that it may prove too much for the average player. I am reading "The Wages of Destruction" by Adam Tooze and it is a great companion to understand what you reflect on your DLC. By failing to knock out the Soviet Union in 1941, Germany was already doom.

Of course, your DLC is not mandatory, but I beleive this mod is difficult as it is. I just made my first Decivsive Victory (on turn 98! and because I got really lucky).

@Mcguba, based on my past playthroughs in 1.9 I agree with most people that the Royal Navy needs to behave differently. Several ships come from the west but stay near the french Brest peninsula. Never moving.
The main force sails from Scapa Flow but I found that it is easy to destroy them with the Kriegsmarine (providing you saved the U-Boats that you accumulate in 1942)

goodbye!

Yes, RN is lazy!

I remember one time, maybe at 1.8, when they behave right: Scapa Flow flotilla came down and the destroyers made havoc of my blocking U-Boats, SE of London. I could barely hold out and with the massive help of the Ju88 bomber squads.
But at 1.9, they just came down and did nothing. This time, with the "Oil DLC", they came down, I destroyer harassed the best U-Boat, that, maybe got scared of it and no more fight happened. I
On the other hand, from the west, the heavy cruisers came and made good challenge. Only the battleship stayed out of the Channel and never showed up.

empedocles wrote: @Mcguba, based on my past playthroughs in 1.9 I agree with most people that the Royal Navy needs to behave differently. Several ships come from the west but stay near the french Brest peninsula. Never moving.

Uhu wrote:Sure, sure, that "mod of the mod" is for hardcore fans, who played already many times though with DV. (Do not try at home, kids! )

honestly, I can't imagine how do you manage to make a DV on turn 50. Did you write a strategic guide somewhere? I'm curious. You are certainly a better player than me (way betteR)

Sometimes I also wrote here some advice, but there is a Tips and tricks for BE topic in the forum.
How?
- Lots of gameplay, several hundred hours... I played it since v1.1
- Dice Chess (but on Rommel difficulty)
- Reloads - from the start of the given turn. Or from 20 turns earlier...

I would gladly make a youtube replay video, but I do not know a good, reliable and free screen recorder.

empedocles wrote:

Uhu wrote:Sure, sure, that "mod of the mod" is for hardcore fans, who played already many times though with DV. (Do not try at home, kids! )

honestly, I can't imagine how do you manage to make a DV on turn 50. Did you write a strategic guide somewhere? I'm curious. You are certainly a better player than me (way betteR)

That would only clear, if we would play multiplayer. Which I yet never played.

Another great video about the East Front and the fall of Fall Blau (and the lost of the war in the east for the Germans).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzr6dD8fvVY

Also credit for McGuba, that he realistically modeled the fight around Stalingrad: also this historic youtuber tells in another video, based on statistic and facts, that the major German losses around/in Stalingrad happened in July and August - so partly before entering the city! That is really good modeled with the "guards", who stand in our way west of Stalingrad.

Dear McGuba,
How can I play the savegames of 1941, 42, 43... If I try to load them nothing happens. I am supposed to put then in a different folder?

What are your future plans for this gorgeous mod?

(Some suggestions about the massive scenario: Third world war? Play as allies? Operation unthinkable? Lord of the rings world?)


Cheers and thank you for such a great mod!!

This happens mostly, when you have already edited the files of the mod.

Third war - if events goes further, soon we can "play" it live...

tactical22 wrote:Dear McGuba,
How can I play the savegames of 1941, 42, 43... If I try to load them nothing happens. I am supposed to put then in a different folder?

What are your future plans for this gorgeous mod?

(Some suggestions about the massive scenario: Third world war? Play as allies? Operation unthinkable? Lord of the rings world?)


Cheers and thank you for such a great mod!!

Goose would like to play this and other mods, but has minimal computer skills.

He has not asked for help.
But in an attempt to help him [or embarrass him into doing it ] I am writing a topic in the main forum on Mods for Dummies.

I am testing very simple installs and have some issues.

If I move the GUID.txt file to the 'Battlefield Europe v1.9'' folder and the 'Battlefield Europe v1.9' folder to my mods folder;
I can start the big scenarios.
But the campaign.pzdat file appears to be a short version on the original main campaign file.
Is there a clean campaign file I could use, or a campaign path from which I could write one.

Proof that this actually works:

tactical22 wrote:Dear McGuba,
How can I play the savegames of 1941, 42, 43... If I try to load them nothing happens. I am supposed to put then in a different folder?

Hi,

You need to copy them to the same place where PzC keeps the savegame files. In my computer it is at:
"C:\Users\Dell\Documents\My Games\Panzer Corps\Save\"

Normally it should be under the Documents folder wherever it is, like "...\Documents\My Games\Panzer Corps\Save\"

Then, if PzC is updated to v1.30 and the mod is installed correctly, and if it is unchanged, the savegames should show up in the load game section and work just fine.

What are your future plans for this gorgeous mod?

I sporadically still work on the next version which, as always, will bring some changes and fixes, but the main focus would be on the multiplayer mode as I cannot really add new features and events to the single player mode due to game engine limitations (mainly lack of AI zones).

Some suggestions about the massive scenario: Third world war? Play as allies? Operation unthinkable? Lord of the rings world?

Yeah, the possibilities are nearly endless, and I do have a few more ideas, but to realize them would require a lot of free time which I do not really have since I work full time.

And by the way, if I can finaly better balance the multiplayer version it will be very much possible to play the Allies against a human opponent. Which will be a lot of fun, for sure, as it is already. However, I do not think it will ever be possible to make the AI of PzC smart enough to control the Axis on a scale like this convincingly. The main problem is, to keep it historically accurate, the Allies have to outnumber the Axis significantly, but the AI plays very poorly against overwhelming odds, especially on a global scale. It would be too easy to exploit the AI's weaknesses on a large map like this as it cannot think globally and it only have a very limited tactical awareness. So probably it would be too easy to beat it playing from the Allied side. Anyway, after I finish with the next multiplayer version of the mod I might give it a go using it as a starting point and see how far I can push it.

dalfrede wrote: Goose would like to play this and other mods, but has minimal computer skills.

He has not asked for help.
But in an attempt to help him [or embarrass him into doing it ] I am writing a topic in the main forum on Mods for Dummies.

Which is a great initiative, and should be made a sticky topic. You might want to give a reference to this as well:

"How to install Generic Mod Enabler":
http://www.slitherine.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27158

which is the recommended method of installing complex mods like mine or that of bebro's or Uhu's, which add or change graphics, equipment, units, and just about every aspect of the game. Placing modded scenarios in the "...\Documents\My Games\Panzer Corps\Mods\" folder can only use the vanilla game files (equipment, graphics, etc.) allowing limited modding possibilities.

The other method would be the "hard copy" - in that one the user has to create a new folder on his computer, give it the name of the mod, then copy all the contets of the "Panzer Corps" folder (basicly the whole game) and then copy over it the contents of the mod and overwrite all the files in that second copy of Panzer Corps. Then he will have the original game in its original folder and the modded Panzer Corps in another. Then he can run the modded game with the PanzerCorps.exe from that modded folder.

Unfortunately this second method also requires some basic computer skills like creating a folder and copying stuff, which not everybody possess. And when the person is fed up with that modded PzC he has to delete the whole folder manually.

But the campaign.pzdat file appears to be a short version on the original main campaign file.
Is there a clean campaign file I could use, or a campaign path from which I could write one.

I do not really understand what you mean by this. I did edit the original campaign.pzdat file for my mod because the campaign in my mod is much "shorter", in the sense that there are only 4-5 scenarios in it, even if the last one starting in 1941 is a massive one. So the modded campaign.pzdat file follows this new and shortened campaign structure. Basically the shorter pre-Barbarossa scenarios only serve as tutorials for the main 99 turn long global scenario, to teach the various game rule and game mechanics changes that I made.